My mother was Vegas
by daughterofacountry
Summary: This is the sequel to Alfred's daughter, it's the story of Clarissa, Vanessa and France's child, and so it's from her perspective. If you liked the one about Vanessa then hopefully you'll like this, and if you haven't read that one yet then you probably should if you would like to read this one. Also, all chapter titles are in French, I thought it might be a nice touch.
1. Je ne comprends pas

"I'm so sorry my darling, I'm so sorry I can't be there for you." My mother whispered to me, her brown hair falling out of her blue eyes. She stared at me for a while before turning her attention to my father. "Francis, take care of her." She said weakly, and all of a sudden I couldn't hear her breathing anymore. My father swept me up into his arms, taking me into a very bright room with lots of people everywhere. All of a sudden two women were clamoring over me, they looked startlingly similar and that unnerved me; I didn't like not being able to tell them apart, it was just strange. But then they stopped and stepped back, a man was asking my father a question he didn't respond, and the man and the two women started crying. I wasn't sure I understood what was going on here, but whatever it was, I wasn't enjoying it, everyone was upset and I didn't have a clue why. I wanted to cry as well, but my father wasn't, and I didn't want him to be the only one not crying, so I didn't. We got to go home later on in the day and I cried when we got there; it smelt like my mother and that made me long for her ever so badly. At this point I still didn't understand anything that was going on. 'Why had the sound of mother's breathing stopped? Why had everyone started crying when father hadn't even said anything? And where was mother now?' All these questions ran through my mind, but I couldn't voice them yet, so I simply cried quietly for hours, wrapped in my father's warm arms. I didn't cry much at all in the days that followed, there seemed no need to, I didn't have to alert father that I was hungry or needed changing, because he always just seemed to know. But then one morning he dressed me all in black; he was in black too; and we went and got into a car with the man and two women from the hospital, who I now understood were my aunts and grandfather. My aunts were sniffling and I think they were crying, but my grandfather didn't make a sound, he just sat there, looking sad. There was a bit of a conversation, but then everyone was silent once more. After a little while the car slowed to a stop and everyone but my father got out. He just sat there for a minute looking scared, but eventually he took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, following everyone else into a strange garden filled with oddly shaped stones. When I was older I found out that these were gravestones, but at the time I had no idea what they were, I just knew that I didn't like them. A strange man talked for a while in a low voice that seemed to make every word sound like it was being said in slow-motion, and then some men lowered a big box into a hole in the ground. I merely watched, how was I to know that my mother lay inside of it, never to re-emerge. Then the hole was filled in and everyone left; except my father and grandfather. They spoke very little, my father only speaking more openly after my grandfather had left us in peace. He spoke of all sorts of things, though mainly of me, and when he ran out of things to say he placed a single white rose on the mound of earth and murmured, "Goodbye." After that, we left, though we came back weekly for years and years, until I turned thirteen that is.


	2. Que voulez-vous dire

"What do you mean we can't go papa? We go every week." I questioned, running after my father as he walked on ahead of me. "I mean we can't go anymore, your grandfather said I was to stop taking you, and seen as he had a very good reason, I listened to him." He replied calmly, which just aggravated me further. "But what was his reason papa?" I said, determined not to give up. "You've no business in knowing that." He turned the corner. "I think I've every business in knowing that, considering that whatever it is is stopping me from visiting my mama." I said, stopping in tracks. My father stopped too, clearly wavering, but then he shook his head and continued on. "Clarissa I'm not going to tell you so you might as well give up." He was being so annoying it was seriously unreal right now. "But papa-" I started, but he cut me off, "No buts, and anyway, there isn't any real point in going, yeah we can talk to her, but she can't hear us, or respond and we can't even see her, so no matter." I stopped dead once more, I knew he was lying, but it still hurt to hear him say that. "But papa..." I said quietly, "All the girls in my class at school have their mamas to come and get them, I see them all hugging at the end of every day, laughing and chatting, happy and...and...normal." I started to cry now, "I'm only ever normal when we go to see her papa, other than that I'm just the motherless weirdo." I sobbed. "Now you are not a weirdo and don't you ever let anybody tell you otherwise! Just because your mother passed away doesn't make you weird." My father said, turning round to face me. "That's part of it. People at school call me names papa. Orphan, weirdo, murderer." I managed to stop sobbing, though tears were still running down my face. "Why on earth would they call you that?" My father asked. "Because mama died the day I was born. They all say I killed her, and that makes me a murderer. I don't have any friends because of that." I said, walking past him and wiping the tears from my eyes. "Then perhaps we should think about getting you into a new school." He said following me. "I don't want to go to a different school. It would just get my hopes of making friends up, just for everything to happen again, so no matter." I said, mocking the way he'd finished before. "It might not be the same in a different school, you might find someone else that's lost their mother, or perhaps their father." He said, catching up to me. I shook my head violently, causing my hair to fall out of the ribbon that was holding it in a neat ponytail. I snatched the ribbon up before it could hit the ground and quickly tied my dark hair back up again; I'd always hated having it in my face. "Oh come on, leave it down." My father said, tugging at the ribbon. "Your curls don't look half as nice up like that." I slapped his hand away. "Don't care." I said, stalking off ahead of him.


	3. Je vais toujours vous protéger

"Look Papa, I know that you don't want to tell me why we have to stop going to see Mama, but you're not the only one who can tell me, so, if you won't, then I can always go and find someone who will." I said proudly, holding my head up high and folding my arms. "You're so persistent Clarissa, why don't you just drop it already? You know that I'm not going to tell you and we both know that you won't ask anyone else, so let it go." My Papa snapped back at me, I'd been nagging him for hours and he was getting kind of angry now. "I know I'm persistent, that's exactly why I'm not going to give in. Please tell me Papa, she's my Mama, I should know why I can't visit her anymore. I have a right to know!" I was actually throwing a little tantrum now, but I was getting so very irritated with him, how could he not tell me why I couldn't go and see my mother? "Perhaps you do have the right to know-" "I do." I interrupted "-But, that doesn't mean that I can tell you. Your Grandfather asked me not to tell you, and I'm simply respecting that." He finished. "I know that, but-" This time he interrupted me. "Clarissa, you have to understand this, I am your father, and as your father I have to protect you from everything that I think you need protecting from. This is something that both me and your grandfather think that you need protecting from, meaning that I have to protect you from it. So please, just move on, I promise that as soon as I think it's alright for you to know, I'll tell you, okay." He said calmly, taking my hands in his and locking his eyes to mine. I finally gave in, sighing loudly. "Okay Papa, as long as you really will tell me at some point." I said quietly. "I will. I promise." He said, letting go of my hands and hugging me. I lent my head against his chest, but didn't hug him back properly, I couldn't seem to make myself hug him back, it just didn't feel right. "Come on, my rose, we've got places to be." He said, releasing me from the hug. "Grab your coat, let's get going, we've only got ten minutes to get to Arthur's house and if we're late then he'll flip out, I really can't deal with that today." He sighed and I giggled. "Yeah, although it is pretty funny sometimes when he flips out." I laughed, grabbing my jacket and shoving it on. He opened the door, stepping aside so that I could go first. "Only when you're watching it as opposed to experiencing it yourself." He laughed as I skipped through the door. "Yeah, I guess so. Although he wouldn't be yelling at me, he'd be yelling at you, so it would still be funny." I said as he stepped through the door after me. "Oui, hilarious." He said sarcastically, pulling the door shut.


	4. s'est avéré que nous étions en retard

"Told you it would be funny Papa." I said, covering my mouth and giggling. It turned out that we were late, and so Arthur did end up having a go at my dad, which I found very amusing. "Shut up you." He said playfully, pushing me off of the arm of the sofa that I had placed myself on so very delicately. I fell onto the floor in an undignified heap, and my father held out his hand to help me up. I took hold of it and pulled him down onto the floor next to me. "Oi, stop it, you're making us look bad, you little what name." He said laughing, grabbing the arm of the sofa to pull himself up with. "So what? You pushed me down here first, so really it's your fault." I said, grabbing his arm to help me up. "Are you two even coming?" Arthur's voice suddenly sounded as he poked his head around the door, looking very impatient. "Oui, we are coming right now." Papa replied, and Arthur's head disappeared back through the door. "Where are we even going?" I asked, linking arms with my dad. "I have absolutely no idea, all I know is we're getting in a car and someone is going to drive somewhere, where we will get out of the car and follow other people to where ever we might be going." He replied. "Ah, helpful." I said sarcastically as we left Arthur's house. My papa opened the car door for me and I climbed in, scooting over a seat so that papa could get in next to me. I was sat in the middle seat in the back, with my papa on one side and Prussia on the other side, who kept telling rather rude jokes and changing random statements into ones with rude meanings. I was getting pretty fed up of it so I opened my little bag and got my ipod out, neatly tucking a stray curl behind my ear as I slipped my headphones on. I didn't really want everyone else to be able to hear what I was listening to, so I kept it on so quietly that they wouldn't hear it, but loud enough that I couldn't hear Prussia. The exact volume that I needed was very hard to find, and when I did find it he decided to get louder, so I had to break my personal little rule of not letting others hear my music, so pretty soon as well as being able to hear Prussia, everyone could also hear random Japanese music blaring from my headphones. It probably would have been better had Japan been in the car with us, as then at least he would have known what I was listening to, as opposed to everyone else having no idea what the music was. I closed my eyes after a while, swaying my head along with the beat. I was listening so intently that I didn't even realize when the car finally stopped. "Clarissa, Clarissa. Headphones off, we're here. Where ever here may be." My father said, with a hint of humor at the end. I smiled, slipping my headphones back into my bag. "Well then let's find out exactly where here is." I said cheerfully, climbing over him and jumping out of the car, landing neatly on the pavement outside. "Calm down Clarissa, I'm certain we'll find out soon enough." Papa climbed out of the car after me. "I know, but I want to find out now." I laughed, hitching my skirts out of the way of my feet and running off up a grassy slope.


	5. la vue était à couper le souffle

"Clarissa! Come back!" Papa yelled, running after me as I sprinted up the hill. I ignored him, only stopping when I reached the very top of the hill. The view was breathtaking. There were clumps of trees dotted about everywhere, some were stood alone, but others were surrounded by beautiful flowers. Every field was a slightly different shade of green and most of them had animals of some sort wandering around or nibbling on the soft grass. The sky was the most amazing shade of blue and to me it seemed as though I could simply stay there all day, taking everything in. I felt as though if I wanted to then I could stay there forever, never moving, just staying on top of that hill, watching the animals walk and the flowers swaying in the light breeze. "Clarissa...I've...told you...a million times...don't...run off...like that." Papa panted, finally catching up to me. "If you've told me a million times then you should know by now that telling me doesn't work. I still run off. Never that far though, I'm not stupid." I said quietly, still gazing out at the glorious scene in front of me. My papa didn't even have time to respond as, just then, my grandfather pulled up in his car. "Hey Clarissa! Get over here!" He called to me. I spun round, a big grin on my face and ran back down the hill again, straight into my grandfathers arms. "Hey kid." He said to me as he released me from the hug. "Hey." I said back, still grinning. I glanced behind me to check whether my papa had come back yet, but he was still strolling down the hill, hands in his pockets, as slowly as he could possibly go. "Hurry up Papa! I think they're all leaving now!" I called to him, noticing that everyone had started to congregate near a little dirt path. He sped up and soon we both joined the little crowd to head off. Neither of us knew where we were even going, so we just followed every body else. I was in a very energetic mood, so I kept running ahead of papa to talk to other people, and after a while they were boring me, so I ran right to the front where Russia was. He only scared me when he was angry, and he wasn't angry now, so I talked to him. "Hi Russia." I said cheerfully. He hadn't noticed me before, so he jumped a little when I spoke to him. "Hello Clarissa. I didn't know you were even here." He said calmly. "Yeah, not many people here did, although they all knew that my papa was here, so they really should have guessed." I said, brushing a leaf off of my skirt. Before he could reply I spotted something on the side of a hill a little way away, and instantly I wanted a closer look. I knew papa would be angry if I ran off again, so I decided that they best way to get a better look would be to get higher up. I ran forward to where there was a tree and swung myself up into it's branches. After finding the most secure spot I could I looked back up at the hill, finding what I was looking for in seconds. "Wow..." Was all I could say as I realized what it was.


	6. Je n'avais jamais vu ça avant

The thing that I'd spotted on the hill was a group of huge statues. They were all of these weird women in different historical clothing, doing weird historical job things. I'd seen pictures of them and was utterly fascinated by them. Why would anyone think to create statues of women doing every day errands? I had no idea why, I just knew that I loved them and I had loads of pictures. Although this was the first time I'd ever seen them in real life. No one but Russia knew that I was in the tree, so as everyone continued walking my papa got a little worried. He'd gone almost to the front of the crowd and hadn't spotted me, so he had no idea where I was. "Clarissa, Clarissa. Oh where could she have gone? Clarissa!" He yelled after he couldn't find me. "I'm here papa." I said, hanging upside down from a low branch and tucking my skirt between my knees so that it wouldn't fall. He gave a sigh of relief. "There you are. What on Earth are you doing in a tree?" He asked, with what sounded like a forced chuckle. "I was looking at the statues and now I'm talking to you." I said truthfully. He rubbed his temple, clearly unsure of how to deal with me. "The statues." He sighed. "Yeah, the statues of the random women, they're right over there." I said, swinging myself back up into the tree. "Alright get out of the tree, unless you want to be left behind." He said, taking a few steps in the direction that everyone else was going. "Fine." I said reluctantly, whipping my phone out of my bag and taking a quick picture before jumping out of the tree. "You really shouldn't climb trees, it's not exactly graceful." Papa said with a smile, walking a few steps ahead of me. "It is when I do it." I laughed, quickly overtaking him and running off to catch up with the others.

*SORRY THIS CHAPTER IS A LITTLE SHORT, I'M LOW ON INSPIRATION AT THE MOMENT BUT I MIGHT LENGTHEN IT IN A BIT, OR PERHAPS I'LL JUST MOVE ON, WHO KNOWS? NOT ME. YET ANYWAY. TOODLES FOR NOW PEEPS.*


End file.
